Marvel has a ton of female characters, as well as people of color. There are minorities both on and off Marvel’s pages, but it’s hard to find them being pushed as the main attraction to the story.
When I was doing research for my Jessica Jones article, off-screen inclusivity was a big focus. That got me thinking about on-screen inclusivity.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going for 8 years. I bet that makes you feel old. In this time, Marvel has released 13 movies, and 5 TV shows, totaling approximately 167 hours (as of October 26, 2016).
In all this time, Marvel’s bound to have had all sorts of different types of main characters, right? Well…no, not really. In all this time, they’ve had a grand total of 2 female leads (3 if you count Daisy from Agents of Shield, but that’s a team-based show). These characters are Jessica from Jessica Jones, and Peggy from Agent Carter. Even worse? There’s only been one person of color in a leading role, the very recent addition of Luke Cage‘s same-name protagonist. All of these characters have made little to no appearances in Marvel’s bread-and-butter, their movies.
The worst part of all of this? The future isn’t that much brighter. The only currently planned shows with female or PoC protagonists are just second seasons to pre-existing shows. There’s a grand total of one female-led film in the works (Captain Marvel), and similarly just one PoC-led film in the works (Black Panther).
This is just bad. Little girls and little boys with every skin color like superheroes too. It’s only fair to give them heroes to look up to that look like them.
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments or the RGM Forums!
